Ai ni Tsuite (On Love)
by Mikauzoran
Summary: In order to win a spot in the Suzuki's civilian skating competition, Kaito has to accept the help of Hakuba. As they spend hours each day practicing together, they begin to open up about past traumas that are still holding them back, fostering a friendship that could serve as a strong foundation for something more.
1. Chapter 1

Mikau: Merry Christmas and/or Happy Hanukkah to all those celebrating! To all those not, Happy Sunday! Today I have the first chapter of a new HakuKai friendship-building-into-romance fic full of my usual touchy-feely, traumatic backstory sharing mixed with plenty of antics. This was written for kkrazy256/kakashikrazy256 on the Poirot Café forum for our Secret Santa Event 2016. Her request was a story with Kaito ice skating. And then this 18k monster happened. I have it all written, but I'm working on editing it and breaking it into digestible chapters right now, so there should be a steady stream of updates over the next month. There will probably end up being four or five chapters total. I hope you enjoy it!

Disclaimer: Okay, serious disclaimer this time. Besides not owning DCMK, I actually wasn't terribly knowledgeable about figure skating until nineteen days ago (Okay, I still wouldn't consider myself "terribly knowledgeable"). This story has been greatly informed by Yuri on Ice (Go watch it. NOW. Or maybe after you read my fic? ^.^;), YouTube, Wikipedia, and a really great TV special called Figure Skating A to Z that was probably done by NHK. I found it on YouTube, and it was a lot easier to understand everything explained in Japanese, even having to look up words, than it was reading the descriptions of all the jumps and lifts and spins in English. ^.^; So if you understand Japanese, I would recommend that. Sorry there are no subtitles.

…...

Chapter One

After two weeks of intense practice, things were finally going well…for certain values of "well". At any rate, Kaito was beginning to find his balance and be able to skate forward without falling flat on his face quite so much. There were still times when his legs shook like those of a newborn fawn, and he was definitely down far more often than he managed to stay up, but…

"Dammit!" Kaito's cry of frustration echoed around the empty rink as he collided with the ice for the twenty-second time that evening. Unlike the other times, however, he stayed down, punching the ice to release some of the aggravation that had been building all night.

"Dammit," he repeated in a whisper, slapping the ice half-heartedly. "I don't know how the hell I got it into my head that I could do this," he muttered, giving up and lying down in both mental and physical exhaustion. "Stupid Kaito and his stubborn ego," he sighed, closing his eyes.

"Kuroba, you'll catch a cold for sure, sleeping here," a most unwelcome voice gently cautioned.

Kaito sat bolt upright, and even though Hakuba's tone and expression seemed to be of genuine concern, he bristled at the blonde detective slowly skating across the rink towards him. "I wasn't sleeping, moron. I was just…regrouping."

Hakuba frowned, reaching out a hand to help Kaito up. "May I assume that this is about that civilian skating competition that the Suzukis are holding next month to celebrate the opening of their new rink and to showcase that massive morganite they acquired a little while ago?"

"You may not," Kaito snapped, ignoring the outstretched hand and struggling to his feet on his own. Unfortunately, just when he needed their help to preserve his dignity, his legs gave out on him, one going forward while the other slid back until he was doing the splits.

Despite Kaito's protests, Saguru stepped in, pulling the magician up and steadying him. Without releasing Kaito's wrist or removing his hand from Kaito's hip, Saguru looked his rival in the eye and suggested, "Why don't I help you? There are only six weeks left until the rink's opening, if you've really been practicing ceaselessly these past two weeks like Nishinomiya told me when I asked where you'd been lately, and if you've only gotten this far, you've no hope of qualifying for an invitation to the event."

"Tch. Like I need you to teach me anything, you snotty—whoa!" Kaito had yanked his hand away from Hakuba, but the sudden force sent him tripping backwards.

Saguru reached out and caught him, resting his hand between Kaito's shoulder-blades as he held the magician in place and clarified, "I wasn't proposing to become your teacher, Kuroba. I was offering myself as a partner."

Kaito's prickly demeanor fell as confusion set in. He raised an eyebrow at his rival and stared. "Huh?"

"Pair skating," Saguru explained with a confident grin. "Kuroba, you're light and flexible enough to do amazing sequences midair. Once I lifted you off the ice, you wouldn't have to concentrate on balancing or your footwork. I could do it for the both of us while you preform stunning acrobatic feats to wow the audience. If we minimize your actual time on the ice with lifts and spins and tosses and catches, and if I'm there beside you, helping you to balance and steer, you'll have a much better shot at obtaining a spot in the Suzuki's competition…won't you?"

Saguru held out the bait with a neutral smile and waited for his plans to come to fruition.

Kaito gaped at the detective for nearly half a minute, taking into account all that Hakuba had said. In the end, he frowned, still skeptical of the Brit's motives. "Why would you, thinking that I'm KID, offer to help me gain access to a heist target? This is so obviously a trap that—"

"—No trap," Saguru promised, gently applying a reassuring pressure to Kaito's hip where his hand was still helping to keep the magician upright. "Kuroba, if you haven't noticed, for the past three years since high school, I've been actively doing my best to assist you in little ways despite having conclusive, empirical evidence I could have collared you with years ago. So can we please stop with your meaningless denials? It's tiresome and counterproductive."

Kaito pursed his lips, squirming a bit at Saguru's touch. "You still haven't told me _why_ you're doing all this."

Saguru shrugged. "You broke me."

Kaito's eyes widened in alarm as his perplexity grew.

Saguru's grin broadened into a satisfied smirk. "You broke something inside of me, Kuroba, sending me reeling wildly off course. It took me a while to find my center again, but when I finally came out of that tailspin you sent me into, I realized that I'd been blind this whole time. I finally saw things clearly and understood what I needed to do."

"You're still not making any sense," Kaito grumbled, uncomfortable with the blonde's close proximity coupled with this new knowledge that he'd been responsible for someone's quarter-life crisis.

"You're important to me," Saguru summarized, refusing to back down. "And I've taken it upon myself to protect you from yourself and anyone else who might try to harm you. Do you understand?"

"No," Kaito sighed, carefully backing away so that he wouldn't fall again. "But let's stop there with 'you care what happens to me for some unfathomable reason' before this all starts to sound too much more like a confession."

"Very well," Saguru conceded. "But are you satisfied that I mean you no ill will?"

Kaito shrugged, concentrating hard on skating over to the wall without face-planting.

Saguru followed, overtaking the slow-moving Kaito and turning around to skate backwards in front of him. "So will you accept my help?"

Kaito wobbled over to the exit, and once he was off the ice he turned to spit, "Do I look like I have much choice here?" back at the detective. "But this doesn't mean that I owe you, got it? You're the one forcing yourself on me, so don't come back saying that I owe you later, okay?"

Saguru's brow furrowed at the bruised pride so evident in Kaito's curt words and vicious glare. He pursed his lips and responded soothingly. "Of course not, Kuroba. I wouldn't dream of holding something like this over you. Friends don't do that."

The hostility dropped off of Kaito's face slowly as he processed Hakuba's words. He frowned as guilt began to well up inside.

"I, at least, have always thought of us as friends, yes," Saguru answered Kaito's unvoiced question. "Whether _you_ do or not is irrelevant. Either way, I'm happy to help. Shall we meet here tomorrow evening to go over some basics and iron out our plan of attack?" Saguru suggested, coming off the ice and starting back towards the locker rooms.

"Uh…Un," Kaito replied awkwardly, feeling both humiliated that he needed Hakuba's help in the first place and ashamed that he'd acted like such a jerk while Hakuba undisputedly held the higher ground. "See ya tomorrow," he muttered to Hakuba's receding back.

…

"I was watching a little bit yesterday before I called out to you, so I have a general idea of your capabilities," Saguru confessed as they headed out onto the ice the following afternoon. "But what exactly do you feel confident doing?"

Kaito flushed, running a hand through his hair as he shrugged. "Basically just skating forward…if I concentrate really hard," he admitted. "I can generally stay up if I'm moving forward, but…I can't go backwards or stay in one place for very long without landing on my face."

Saguru nodded. "Show me?"

With a nervous shrug, Kaito pushed forward, skating away intently before turning around and coming back on shaky legs. He caught the wall and sheepishly glanced at Hakuba. "Well? Be honest. I already know I suck."

"And it's driving you nuts because you're accustomed to excelling at everything," Saguru hummed thoughtfully.

Kaito rolled his eyes, rubbing the back of his neck as he held onto the wall for balance. "That's about the size of it."

"You're a little stiff, but that can be fixed," Saguru assessed. "The sooner you accept that you're not an expert at skating and that that's okay, normal, and nothing to be ashamed of, the easier this whole process is going to be, Kuroba."

Kaito clicked his tongue. "Easy for you to say; you're used to mediocrity."

Saguru came over to lean on the wall next to his partner as he informed the magician, "I am _now_. Before I met you and got my ego handed to me in fragments, I too had an inflated opinion of myself. You put me through the emotional wringer, Kuroba. All I'm asking of _you_ is to learn a little humility."

Kaito winced, realizing how badly he'd put his foot in his mouth. "…Sorry, Hakuba. 'Self-centered jerk' is kind of my default setting. I'll try to keep a handle on it, but feel free to call me out when I slip up."

"You're a self-centered jerk." Saguru patted Kaito on the back with a friendly grin. "Shall we move on?"

Kaito reluctantly grunted his acquiescence.

"Good." Saguru kept up the cheery demeanor. "Besides, after a great deal of practice, I believe you have the potential to be a competent skater, so there's really no need for you to sulk and pout now. Just put the work in, have some patience, and you'll be passable before you know it. Now." Saguru clapped, drawing their attention back to the task at hand. "Skate towards me," he instructed, pushing off and skating backwards toward the center of the rink."

Kaito did as requested, slowly making his way after Hakuba.

"Glide more," Saguru suggested, studying his partner's movements. "Your steps are too mincing. You don't _walk_ on the ice, Kuroba; you push off and glide. It's a lot like skiing or rollerblading—two sports I'm certain you're proficient in. Just tell yourself that it's no different."

Kaito nodded, attempting to follow Hakuba's directions and pretend he was on the slopes instead. Somehow the one little fact that he was on _ice_ made all of the difference.

"That's better. Keep coming," Saguru encouraged. "Good job, Kuroba! Can you come to a stop?"

Kaito did so, stopping a few feet in front of Saguru and teetering back and forth as he tried to maintain his balance.

Saguru came to his side, placing his hands on Kaito's waist to steady him. "Much better," he praised with a big smile for his partner. "You're still trying too hard, but at least now you look less awkward."

"If I don't try at least that hard, I end up kissing ice," Kaito snorted. "How am I supposed to get by on less than that, do you think?"

Saguru bit the inside of his cheek as he searched for the words to explain. Absentmindedly he played with the hem of Kaito's shirt. "It's like…when you're in the water and you start to go under, you'll only sink faster if you fight and thrash. The answer is to spread your arms out and float, letting the water support you. Right now, Kuroba, you're fighting the ice. It's like you don't trust it, like you're afraid that it's going to split open and swallow you up. You need to stop being so tense. If you can just relax and stop overcorrecting, you'll find things much easier."

Kaito looked away, gently pulling his shirt hem out of Saguru's fingers. "How do I know it's not gonna break and swallow me?" he mumbled.

Saguru blinked, studying Kaito intently for a moment. Even though the question had been posed in a bit of a sarcastic tone, he detected the slightest hint of sincere fear in Kaito's words.

"Even if it does break open," Saguru gently assured, "I'll be right there next to you, and I won't let you sink. I'll be there to protect you."

Kaito turned back, meeting Saguru's confident gaze. He raised an eyebrow and scoffed, "Am I supposed to swoon now and sigh, 'My hero!'?"

Saguru smiled sheepishly. "I suppose not?"

Kaito shook his head. "What host club did you steal those lines from? Geez."

"You're one to talk what with the rot you spew as KID," Saguru reminded the thief of his own tendencies.

"Point," Kaito conceded. "But I don't need to be protected, okay? …And if I do fall in and I'm not breathing when you pull me out, just let me die. If I get resuscitated and find out you gave me mouth to mouth, I'll have to commit seppuku anyway, so don't waste your time."

"Noted," Saguru sighed. "But shall we get back to practice now?"

Kaito shrugged indifferently as Hakuba gradually let go, allowing Kaito to attempt to balance on his own.

Saguru skated backwards a little ahead of Kaito, motioning for him to follow. "Remember what I told you. Relax and pretend that you're rollerblading, Kuroba. Glide."

Kaito slowly skated after Hakuba, trying to keep everything the blonde had said in mind while simultaneously attempting to shut out the other thoughts that had been plaguing him from youth.

"Use your core to balance, Kuroba, not your legs," Saguru advised.

"You're still trying too hard. Relax," he gently coached several minutes later.

Praises of "Good job!", "Nice, Kuroba", and "Much better" were interspersed with critiques including "Don't look at your feet so much" and "Just move your arms naturally" until almost an hour later Kaito was able to cautiously skate around the entire rink without wiping out.

"Excellent job!" Saguru cheered, clapping Kaito on the shoulder and then reflexively putting an arm out around Kaito's waist to catch him when the clap knocked the magician off balance.

Steadying himself against the wall, Kaito bit his lip and looked back at his partner. It took him a minute to swallow his pride, but eventually he managed to mutter, "Thanks, Hakuba."

"Don't mention it," Saguru waved Kaito's thanks away. "I'm the one that almost knocked you over in the first place."

"I meant…" Kaito looked down at his feet. "…for your time. I appreciate you being so patient and explaining things over and over. Thank you for working with me."

Saguru smiled as he realized he was finally breaking through to Kaito and gaining ground. "You're sincerely welcome, Kuroba."

Kaito exited the rink and, without turning back, added over his shoulder, "And sorry for always being such a jerk to you all these years. I misjudged you."

"Not a problem," Saguru assured with a wide grin. He wished Kaito hadn't turned his back towards Saguru, though. Saguru could see from behind how red the tips of Kaito's ears were, and he would have liked to have caught a glimpse of Kaito's carnation red face as he finally let go of his enormous pride and admitted he'd been wrong.

…

Back in the locker room as they were putting their shoes on, Saguru pulled out a tablet from his bag. "So, before we call it quits for the day, I'd like to show you a few clips to give you a better idea of what I have planned in the future once you're more comfortable with the basics."

Kaito scooted closer on the bench, holding his breath as the video loaded.

"This is Yu Xiaoyu and her partner Jin Yang several years back skating to a Phantom of the Opera medley," Saguru explained, handing the tablet to Kaito. "Watch the lifts they do in the latter half in particular."

Kaito nodded, his eyes widening as the skaters took off, executing beautiful footwork and jumps. "Geez," he whispered. "I can't do that."

" _Yet_ ," Saguru countered. "And don't worry. We won't be doing so many individual elements like side by side jumps and spins. We'll mostly be sticking close together and preforming a lot of lifts and carries and pair spins. I also want to try—Oh. Watch this death spiral."

" _Death_ spiral?" Kaito gaped as he watched Jin Yang spin Xiaoyu around in a circle with her head less than a foot from the ice. "I can see why they would call it a death spiral, but why would they actually call it a death spiral? Isn't that a little demoralizing?"

Saguru gave a little shrug. "Usually the woman's body is closer to parallel with the ice than in this performance. I'll show you some others at a later date, but you're going to be able to do a death spiral before we're done."

Kaito scoffed at that, going back to concentrating on the routine on screen.

"That is a pair spin," Saguru pointed out. "We'll be doing a few of those. Don't get me wrong, it's far from easy, but at least I'll be there to help guide you and keep your balance. Flexibility shouldn't be an issue. I have no doubt in my mind that you'll be able to reach back, grab your free skate, and draw it in towards your head."

Kaito shrugged, standing up, balancing on one leg, and reaching back to pull his foot to his head like they had seen in the video. Coming out of the pose, he shrugged again, taking his seat. "Yeah. No, the whole balancing while on the _ice_ part is the problem."

"We'll make it through somehow, Kuroba. It will just take a lot of practice. But watch this twist lift," Saguru instructed as Jin Yang tossed Xiaoyu into the air and caught her after she had spun several times. He placed her back down backwards on one leg while her other arched gracefully behind her.

"Crap," Kaito hissed. "You're not gonna tell me you're going to try to throw me in the air like that, are you?"

"Precisely," Saguru chuckled, beaming. "Don't worry. Keep in mind that the only problem in your case is the ice. Once I throw you into the air, all you have to do is hold your body in the correct position. You have an almost total mastery over your body, Kuroba. This will be a cinch for you."

"What about the landing?" Kaito grumbled nervously. "There's no way I can land on one foot and glide backwards while keeping the other leg up like that. I'm going to fall and break my nose."

"The landing is assisted, Kuroba," Saguru assured. "I'll catch you and set you down gently. You just have to hold your leg up and look elegant. I assume you'll be crossdressing for this event, so I don't imagine that will be an issue."

Kaito shrugged and turned back to the screen.

"Watch this next move. I want to try this too, if at all possible."

"Hell no!" Kaito squeaked. "He threw her! There's no way I'm letting you throw me through the air. I'll break my ankle trying to land like that!"

"We'll see. It's definitely one of the more difficult moves I want to try with you, but… We'll see how you do with the twist lift landing and everything, and then we'll see if we can't try a throw jump."

Kaito sighed, feeling utterly overwhelmed. He brightened a bit, however, as Jin Yang lifted Xiaoyu over his head and she began to execute a series of acrobatic moves. "That," He pointed to the screen triumphantly. "That, I can definitely do. Is that what you were talking about, Hakuba? Lifts?"

"That's right," the blonde affirmed.

Kaito frowned, having second thoughts. "Do you really think you'll be able to hold me up and balance while you skate with me moving around in the air like that?"

"You're not that heavy, Kuroba," Saguru chuckled. "And I'm stronger than I look. Besides, we'll practice and get it down."

Kaito pursed his lips. "I don't know about this, Hakuba. Some of those stunts look really dangerous. I have no idea what I'm doing, and I know I'm going to be too nervous to try because I'll be worried about slashing your face open with my skates."

Saguru snickered softly at this and tried to calm his partner. "It's hard to imagine you of all people nervous about anything, but we'll be practicing on tumbling mats for some time before I allow you anywhere near my head, spinning around with knives attached to your feet, Kuroba. Don't stress about it so much."

Kaito took a deep breath and nodded.

"Just worry about remembering everything we went over today," Saguru advised as he packed up his tablet and skates. "And core work. I can tell you work out regularly, but I want you to pay special attention to building strength in your abs, back, and glutes as we train. That should help with your stability on ice. Tomorrow we'll review skating forward and start working on skating backward."

"If you say so," Kaito sighed, still skeptical.

…

"That's it. Keep coming, Just move your feet in and out like you're making an S," Saguru coached on day three as they reviewed skating backwards.

It was going more slowly than skating forwards had, and Saguru was having to remind himself often just to be patient as Kaito kept making the same mistakes.

"Bend your knees. You'll only fall if you lock them," Saguru repeated for the fifth time, seconds before Kaito came crashing down on the ice.

Saguru pursed his lips and mentally scolded himself, _"Be supportive. He'll only blow up at you and refuse to cooperate if you lose patience with him now. He_ is _trying. He_ has to be _trying."_

Hakuba skated over to Kaito's side and offered his partner a hand up. "Are you all right, Kuroba?"

Kaito nodded, readily accepting assistance, no longer bothering to pretend he didn't need Saguru's help. "Sorry I keep screwing up. I'm just not with it today for some reason, but I'll do better, so…" He got ready to try again.

"Hold on." Saguru reached out, putting a hand on Kaito's forearm. "Kuroba, your head always seems to be a mess, and it's keeping you from doing your best. Would you care to tell me what's going on? Maybe I could help somehow, because the way things are now, you're still stiff and unnatural, and it almost seems like you're afraid of the ice. How can I help you to relax? What can I do?"

Kaito bit his lip, hesitating for a moment before motioning Saguru to come off the ice and sit on the bench with him.

"If you laugh, I'm going to kill you and I'll never tell you anything else ever again," Kaito cautioned with a warning glare.

"Kuroba, friends don't laugh at each other like that," Saguru gently assured. "Feel free to tell me anything."

Kaito looked down at his feet and took a deep breath. "You know how I'm afraid of f-fish?"

Saguru nodded.

"Well, it started when I was really little. I was with my dad, touring—I forget where, if it was Michigan or Canada or someplace—but I went out on the pond near where we were staying, and it must not have been very far into winter yet because the water hadn't frozen over completely. I fell in, so…fish and ice and almost dying are all tied up in the same trauma for me," he confessed, beginning to tremble at the memory. "So that's why I can't just chillax. Every time I go out on the ice, I start to panic because I remember the cold and the darkness, those slimy things all over me and my lungs burning as they filled with frigid water."

Saguru placed a hand on Kaito's shoulder, lightly massaging. "Then I have to commend you, Kuroba, for facing your fears every time you step out onto the ice. You're incredibly brave, and I don't know whether I'd be able to do the same thing in your shoes. You should be proud of how far you've come."

Kaito leaned into Saguru's touch, closing his eyes. "I still feel like an idiot, though. My head knows that the ice on a rink isn't going to break on me, but my gut always whispers, 'What if?'"

"You're far from idiotic, despite what Aoko-san says," Hakuba assured. "Everyone has something that's hard for them to face. For me, it's a fear that I'm unlovable and that everyone is going to abandon me. It doesn't matter that our fears are a bit unreasonable; they're still very real to us. And _everyone_ has something like that, so no one has the right to give you trouble over it. Please try to remember _that_."

Kaito opened one of his eyes into a slit to study Saguru's expression. He opened his mouth to say something, but Saguru unintentionally cut him off as he put his other hand to work massaging, and Kaito closed his eyes once more with a weary sigh.

"But what can we do to get you relaxed enough to work through your fears?" Saguru hummed pensively.

"This is good," Kaito mumbled, enjoying the light pressure. "And it helps when I can see you in front of me. I was able to do so well with skating forward the past two days because you were always there in front of me, so I felt a little more secure. Skating backwards has been so hard because no one's there to reassure me, so I start to panic and retreat into my own thoughts…which aren't very helpful."

Saguru nodded. "It sounds like exposure therapy is our best bet, but until you get used to skating and subconsciously learn that you're safe and that nothing bad is going to happen while you're on the ice, I can make sure I'm always visible so you have something else to focus on. Would that help?"

"Can shoulder rubs become a regular thing too?" Kaito purred as Saguru's fingers kneaded at stiff spot.

Saguru managed to hold in the laugh threatening to break through, but he couldn't stop a smile from showing. "Of course. If it helps."

"It helps," Kaito affirmed, savoring the calm and pleasure Saguru's hands evoked.

"Well then, how about I give you a nice back rub, and then we'll head back out onto the ice for another twenty minutes or so and try you skating backwards while I skate forwards in front of you so that I'm in your line of vision? Then we can spend the rest of our time in the gym on the mats working on some lifts. I want to start practicing so we can begin to work them in once you're comfortable with the basic elements."

"Un," Kaito responded absentmindedly, too wrapped up in the massage to fully process the plan at that moment.

"Good." Saguru did allow himself a light chuckle this time. "And, Kuroba?"

"Hm?" Kaito lazily opened one eye.

"Thank you so much for having faith enough to share that with me."

Kaito's other eye opened, and he smiled sheepishly. "You're the one who earned my trust."

…

Mikau: Well. One down. What did you think? I hope it was enjoyable to read. I was kind of worried at first that it would be dry and boring with all of the skating, but I hope you had fun anyway. I'm anxious to know what you thought. See you next time!


	2. Chapter 2

Mikau: Hi all! Welcome back! I'm so glad that so many of you enjoyed the last chapter! Thank you so much for coming back to read this one too. ^o^ Special thanks to reviewers: madelita, kakashikrazy256, LadyShadow26, and arccie. I don't have much to say today. I'm super tired, but if you're interested in more Hakuba angst ending in cute/sweet HakuKai, I have a new one-shot called "It Pours". Check it out if you have time and or interest.

Disclaimer: A quick reminder that I still own nothing and continue not to be very knowledgeable about ice skating. Special thanks to internet research made possible by YouTube, Wikipedia, and Google.

…..

Chapter Two

"Dance lifts," Hakuba announced, "are lifts that don't go above the man's shoulders, and they count towards the score for presentation and choreography instead of the technical score for other lifts and jumps."

Seeing that he was losing his audience's interest, Saguru added, "But we don't have to go into that much. I looked at the Suzuki competition rules, and they're being utterly informal about this without any required elements or strict adherence to normal scoring procedure, so you don't need to worry about all that."

Kaito nodded, giving the thumbs up. "I'll focus on not falling and cracking my skull open." A thought crossed his mind. "Though, I guess with lifts and all that, I'll just have to leave the not falling part in your hands too."

Saguru tensed, a solemn expression overtaking his face as he vowed, "Kuroba, I would fall myself and let you fall on top of me, risking getting cut up by your skates, before I would ever drop you. I promise you that, so don't worry."

Kaito smiled sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck as he chuckled, "You're always super intense, Hakuba. Don't stress so much. I know you would never drop me. So ready to get started?"

Saguru nodded, relaxing only slightly. "There's just one thing before we begin."

Kaito inclined his head to the side and waited for Saguru to elaborate.

"You've seen the moves they do in the videos I've shown you. It can get a little…" Saguru grimaced. "…intimate. You're not going to feel uncomfortable doing those kinds of things with me, are you?" He could feel his cheeks start to burn with embarrassment.

Surprisingly, Kaito just shrugged. "You mean like wrapping my legs around your waist or hanging off of you? Not really. I've had to get lovey-dovey with the spouses of both genders of people I was impersonating before for work, and you're a lot younger, more attractive, and of less uncertain origin than a lot of those people, so I honestly don't have a problem doing a little risqué dancing on ice with you."

All Saguru could do was stare as his mind reeled. He tried to shut out images of what getting "lovey-dovey" might mean at the same time as he tried to ascertain whether Kaito had just said that he was attractive or if he had been hearing things again.

In the end, the first words to successfully take form on Hakuba's lips were "'Of less uncertain origin'?"

Kaito averted his gaze, lifting and dropping one shoulder in what he hoped appeared to be nonchalance. "The worst part of having to kiss someone you don't love is not knowing where they've been. You, however, are of less uncertain origin. I mean, you're still a virgin, right?"

Saguru stared at Kaito for a poignant moment. "Virgin?"

Kaito's eyes widened slightly as, instead of getting flustered and scolding Kaito, Hakuba just looked sad.

Kaito was about to make an attempt at turning the whole thing into a joke and try to get Hakuba to laugh it off with him when Hakuba finally spoke, "I would have thought that the worst part of having to kiss someone you didn't love would be demeaning such a sacred thing as a kiss, the guilt of tricking someone into infidelity, and, at the same time, betraying your own future mate by giving away a piece of yourself and cheapening the act of kissing."

The words weren't exactly accusatory. Hakuba's tone was merely morose and full of regret, not the least bit scathing towards Kaito, but Kaito felt those words as if they had been nonetheless. He'd never thought so much about it. He'd never considered that he was doing something wrong…besides the underlying vigilantism, but…

Saguru noticed the shock and distress on Kaito's face, and his bereft expression changed into a melancholy smile that Kaito got the impression was supposed to be cheering him up. "Sorry. I'm a little overdramatic at times. Don't think about what I said too much."

Saguru turned to go and fetch his tablet from his bag, and Kaito could have sworn he heard the detective mutter, "Besides, I've done much, much worse."

Kaito was about to say something, but Hakuba turned back with his usual encouraging expression and cheerful smile, and Kaito lost his nerve and, with it, his chance.

"All right. Dance lifts. Let's go over the basics."

By the end of that day's lesson, Kaito's head was so full of new information about the techniques that the whole incident got pushed to the very back of his mind.

…

"This reminds me of the tango," Kaito remarked a few days later during their lift practice on the tumbling mats.

"Oh?" Saguru hummed as Kaito (currently with his legs wrapped around Saguru's waist) leaned backwards until his head was only a foot or so from the ground while his fingertips grazed it. "Why do you say that?"

"Because, like the tango, this is just like having sex with your clothes on," Kaito replied simply and thoughtlessly, caught up in the joy of hanging upside-down.

Saguru gave a start, physically jerking Kaito out of his daydreaming state.

Kaito pulled himself up so that he was face to face with Saguru, wrapping his arms around the blonde's neck so that he was hanging off of Saguru like a baby koala. "What?" Kaito laughed mirthfully. "Have you honestly never thought that before?"

"N-No!" Saguru stuttered, cheeks quickly taking on a red stain.

"Really?" Kaito tipped his head to the side, studying his partner in earnest. "Damn. You've got some serious self-control if you can endure having beautiful young women hang off of you like this and not even think about getting laid. I'd have sex on the brain all the time, if it were me."

"I begin to think you a nymphomaniac anyway," Saguru grumbled, avoiding Kaito's gaze. "Besides, it can be cataclysmic to harbor feelings for you partner," Saguru informed Kaito as well as reminded himself. "What if they find out you've been fantasizing about them and become offended? You lose trust that way, and a loss of trust breaks partnerships. If you allow yourself feelings for your partner, you risk rejection, the pain of unrequited love, and then the disintegration of your friendship and partnership on top of all that."

"But has there ever been a partner you've had a thing for?" Kaito pressed. "Come on. Tell me a story about star-crossed lovers and taboo romance in the ice skating community."

"Why must you tease me so?" Saguru sighed, still refusing to look at Kaito.

"It's fun?" Kaito shrugged. "I like seeing your face go all red, Hakuba. It's adorable," he chuckled. "But right now, I'm honestly not teasing."

"You may not _think_ that you're teasing, Kuroba, but I assure you, you are," Saguru insisted.

"How?" Kaito grinned at the impressive blush quickly spreading across Saguru's cheeks. "Because it embarrasses you to talk about attraction and desire?"

Kaito unhooked his left leg from around Hakuba's waist and let it drag up Hakuba's leg with a tantalizing languidness.

"Do I make you uncomfortable because you think I'm sexy?" Kaito whispered huskily, just waiting to get a big reaction out of his partner, fully expecting Saguru to drop him and give him a serious chewing out.

Kaito never could have foreseen the way in which Hakuba actually responded.

He grabbed Kaito, pulling the magician in until their bodies were flush against one another. One hand grabbed Kaito's butt while the other took hold of the back of his head. Saguru gently pressed his lips to the base of Kaito's neck and chuckled, "God, what would you do if I told you how much I wanted you? Would you stop baiting me if you knew you were prodding a hungry tiger with a stick?"

Saguru slowly pulled away, leaving Kaito to stand on his own.

The stunned Kaito failed to support his own weight. His legs crumpled underneath him as he sank to the ground, looking up in dazed confusion at Hakuba.

The blonde blushed, frowning down at Kaito, even though he was really only upset with himself. "Do you see, Kuroba?" he challenged. "How does it feel when someone turns the tables and does it to you, making you feel awkward and uncomfortable like that?"

Kaito just stared, his entire body tingling, then burning, and then going numb in turns. His mind was racing and yet oddly blank.

Saguru shifted uneasily, beginning to fear he'd ruined everything. "Do you see?" he demanded again to fill the crushing silence. "So please stop doing things like that to me."

Still Kaito failed to respond, and Saguru began to panic. "Forgive me," he begged, falling to his knees into a bow so that his head would be lower than Kaito's. "I went too far to prove my point. What I did was vulgar and inappropriate. I understand if you're disgusted with me and no longer wish to—"

"—Hakuba," Kaito called, coming out of his stupor. He reached out and forced his friend to sit up. "Relax," he assured with a nervous chuckle. "It's okay. We're cool. I'm not disgusted or anything. You just kind of knocked the wind out of me there for a second." His laugh gained strength, beginning to sound more like normal. "I always think of you as pretty mild and restrained, so I was kind of shocked. I'd never really thought you could be seductive before, but clearly I was wrong."

Saguru blinked owlishly. "So…I haven't ruined everything? You weren't freaked out?"

Kaito shook his head and grinned. "No. Not at all. Even if you had scared me a bit, friendships don't dissolve that easily. Besides, I should be able to take what I dish out, right? I'm at least that bad to you, aren't I? So it'll take a lot more than that to 'ruin everything' and make me not want to be your friend anymore."

Not it was Saguru's turn to stare speechlessly at Kaito. It took him a moment to reply. "Do you…really think of me as a friend?"

Kaito smiled sadly at the tentative hope sparkling in Saguru's eyes. "Of course I do. Though, I didn't realize it until you told me that you considered me as one the other day. It was then that I realized that we had been friends since high school…only, whereas you had always been wonderful to me, I had only ever been a complete jerk to you. There's no doubt that _you're_ **my** friend. I'm just wondering how in the world you came to think of _me_ as one with the way I've always mistreated you."

Saguru shrugged. "You were never really that bad."

"I stole your school uniform during gym, covered you in feathers both at heists and in the classroom, and I hung you upside down in your boxers," Kaito reminded stoically. "What are you, a masochist?"

Saguru smiled bashfully. "You were just mischievous and bad at expressing your true feelings. You're still like that. I could see that you were really a good person at heart, though."

"You have the _worst_ taste," Kaito sighed, getting to his feet and then offering Saguru a hand. "But, long story short, we're still friends, everything is cool, and I'm really sorry for teasing you. Forgive me?"

Saguru smiled in relief, allowing Kaito to help pull him up. "Of course. Back to practice?"

"Sure." Kaito grinned as he got back into position to work on the lift they had been practicing before.

"That was kind of fun, though," Kaito chuckled as he gracefully leaned back until his fingers skimmed the ground.

"What was?" Saguru frowned, feeling like he'd entered halfway through the conversation.

Kaito snickered, lifting up a bit to watch Saguru's reaction. "You hitting on me like that. That was some hot stuff, Haku-chan. You made my heart skip there for a minute. I'm still kind of blown away by your secret sexy side."

"Oh, stop," Saguru groaned. "You're incorrigible."

"Seriously!" Kaito urged, even as he laughed at his friend's flustered expression. "I think I fell in love with you a little bit there."

Saguru pursed his lips, studying Kaito skeptically. "…Seriously?"

Kaito smiled, leaning back. "You're sexy, Haku-chan. Own it already."

Saguru sighed. "If you say so…. You're never going to stop teasing me completely, are you?"

"I'm being totally serious," Kaito insisted. "You're a stud…. But no. I'm going to tease you, at least a little bit, until the day I die. That's the price of my friendship."

"Then I suppose I'm doomed to die of humiliation or become immune with time," Saguru muttered.

"You're supposed to say, 'Your friendship is worth it!'" Kaito scoffed.

"Didn't you just get on my case the other day for one such a cheesy manga line?" Saguru reminded smugly.

Kaito pretended to pout. "You're supposed to act cheesy when it suits me."

Saguru rolled his eyes, chuckling, "Back to work, Kuroba."

…

"Show me one more time," Kaito insisted at the end of practice three weeks into training. "I want to be sure I know what I'm doing before you make me try this on ice tomorrow."

"You'll be _fine_ , Kuroba," Saguru insisted, chuckling as he set up to do the axel again. "You're ready."

"I don't feel ready!" Kaito shouted back petulantly as Saguru took off into the jump.

"What? Don't you trust me?" Saguru pouted, even as he landed gracefully and continued to glide across the ice on one foot.

"Sneaky," Kaito grumbled. "Don't you go playing the trust card, Haku-chan. It's your assessment of my abilities that I'm doubting."

"So you _don't_ trust me," Saguru moped as he skated to the exit and stepped off the ice.

Kaito glared, giving his partner a playful swat.

Saguru smirked. "You're going to kill it tomorrow. I know you will. You've improved drastically these past few weeks."

Kaito sighed, shaking his head as they started back towards the locker room. "It's more likely that the jump will kill _me_."

"Stop," Hakuba chuckled. "Kuroba, do you really think I'd stand by and let you die? I'm going to be right there beside you."

Kaito took a seat on the bench and pursed his lips. "Point. But do you really think I'll be able to do it?" He snuck an anxious glance at his partner.

"Of course you will. Even if you don't get it on the first try, it's not the end of the world." Saguru tried to put things into perspective. "You'll fall, I'll help you up, and then we'll try it again until you're able to do it without much thought. It'll be just like when you were learning to skate backwards and forwards for the first time."

"Only, hopefully not as humiliating," Kaito sighed, taking off his skates and pulling on his shoes.

"It was only so difficult in the beginning because you wouldn't let go of your stubborn hubris," Saguru reminded.

Kaito winced. "So you think it'll be easier now that I have no pride left?"

Saguru rolled his eyes and started unlacing his own skates. "It will be easier because you have a better foundation as a skater now."

Kaito nodded. "I'm actually kind of excited, believe it or not," he admitted with a sheepish smile. "You honestly think I'll be all right?"

Hakuba looked up into Kaito's eyes and declared, "You're going to nail it. If you don't, it'll only be due to nerves, not a lack of skill."

Kaito's tentative smile spread into a full grin. "I hope so. Now that I've been doing this every day for the past three weeks and it's not as scary, I'm actually starting to enjoy skating. It's really freeing, you know?"

Saguru smiled nostalgically and nodded. "I always found it to facilitate good headspace. Whenever I needed to clear my mind and just breathe, I always headed to the rink when I was a young adolescent."

Kaito leaned back, placing his hands on the bench behind him for support. "How did you first get into ice skating anyway? I was pretty surprised when you turned out to be as good as you are. Nothing in particular about you screams 'pair skater', so…"

Saguru gave his right shoulder a small shrug. "It was just one of the innumerable lessons I underwent as a child—fencing, ballroom dance, billiards, card games, golf, chess, swimming, judo… I started ice skating when I was twelve, and, oddly enough, it was one of the few that stuck."

"Why do you think that is?" Kaito pressed out of pure curiosity.

Saguru averted his gaze. "At first the big draw was the freedom and the peace I felt while doing it, but…I probably would have quit sooner if not for Kostya."

"K-Kosuchia?" Kaito tried out the foreign word and frowned.

"Kostya," Saguru repeated slowly, even though it pained him to do so.

"Kostya," Kaito copied, getting it on his second attempt. "Is that Russian or something? Who's Kostya?"

Saguru nodded, still looking down at his feet as he took ample time unlacing his skates. "Kostya was my skating instructor from the time I was fourteen until I turned sixteen." He took a deep breath before continuing, "For me, it was love at first sight, although I must have seemed like such a little kid to Kostya."

"So you kept skating because you had a crush on your teacher?" Kaito chuckled. "That's super cute, Haku-chan. I can just see you as a shy kid, pining away after your instructor. So you like older women? How old was Kostya?"

"Eleven years my senior." Saguru smiled bitterly. "But I didn't keep taking lessons so that I could nurse a schoolboy crush on Kostya; I used lessons and extra training as excuses so that we could meet without my family finding out what was really going on between us."

Kaito's eyes widened as the pieces fell into place. "You sly dog," he whistled. "Geez. Even back then you were already a stud. Were you seriously dating your ice skating teacher?"

"We were together for two years," Saguru confirmed, picking up the pace as he put on his regular shoes. He'd wanted to tell Kaito about Kostya and everything that had happened, but it still felt too soon, and Saguru wasn't ready to share it all—most particularly how "Kostya" was short for Konstantin and the truth about how far the relationship had gone.

"Was she a total hottie?" Kaito begged for details. "She must have been if she was an athlete. Do you have any pictures?"

Saguru bit his lip as he reached for his wallet. "One. Just the one." He selected the photo from the back, lifting it with his index and middle finger and handing it over to the eager Kaito.

Kaito's face fell as he studied the photo booth picture. There was a sixteen year-old Hakuba, obviously deliriously in love judging by the content smile and the dreamy eyes as he rested his head on the shoulder of his beloved. The other person, supposedly Kostya, was hard to read based on the fluffy, burgundy winter coat they were wearing. One hand appeared to be resting on Hakuba's back while the other was tucked inside their pocket. The face had been burned out of existence with a lighter, leaving a charred hole where Kostya's head should have been.

Kaito looked up searchingly at Saguru, slightly disturbed at the violence of emotion that would lead someone to burn a picture of the person they had once loved.

Saguru kept his gaze down but surreptitiously snuck glances at Kaito as he confessed, "Kostya was an abusive, manipulative jerk who used me, ripped my heart out, and then stomped on it. Kostya made me hate people…myself most of all."

Kaito opened his mouth to say something, encourage his friend, comfort him, but the half-formed words stuck in his throat. What did you say when someone shared something like that with you?

Before Kaito could gather his thoughts, Saguru took the photo back from Kaito and flipped it over, showing Kaito the reverse side.

"Souviens-Toi," Kaito read, frowning. "French? 'Remember'?"

Saguru nodded. "There's a village called Oradour-sur-Glane in France that has stood in ruins for over half a century now. The Nazis stormed the village, rounding up the people and taking the men to be shot in sheds and barns. The women and children they locked in the church. They set it on fire and shot anyone who tried to escape out the windows. Over six hundred people died in a few short hours. After the war, they decided to let the ruins stand as a testament to the atrocities of war, and over the entrance they posted a sign reading 'Souviens-Toi', 'Remember'. I may be a little overdramatic in saying so, but Kostya is my own personal Oradour-sur-Glane. I carry that picture around so that I never forget what human beings are capable of doing to each other."

Kaito sat in stunned silence for a minute before he was finally able to put his thoughts into words. "Believe me, I'm very familiar with how much human beings can suck and how a person you love and trust can turn on you and end up not really being the person you've loved and idolized your entire life after all. I'm not going to say I know how you feel because I only know what my own pain was like, but I can say that I've been hurt in a somewhat similar way before, and it took me a long time, but I decided that I wasn't going to let some jerk ruin the rest of my life. I'd already lost enough time mourning my father the first time when I was little and then self-destructing when I found out he wasn't dead and wasn't the great guy I had always thought either. I decided to keep moving forward."

Saguru frowned as Kaito looked him straight in the eye. "Haku-chan, what I mean is that you shouldn't let what happened with that bitch define the rest of your relationships. What happens when you meet someone worth caring about and offering your heart to but you're still too hung up on something that happened nearly five years ago to be able to accept this new person's love? I think it's important not to forget what happened so that you're not taken advantage of again, but if you hold on too tightly to those bad experiences, you won't be able to reach out and take hold of new opportunities. I'm not trying to tell you what to do because that's up to you to decide for yourself, but, as your friend, I just want to caution you so you don't miss out on future happiness…because there are good people out there worth loving and trusting."

"I'm starting to think so too," Saguru admitted, meeting Kaito's concerned gaze with a slight smile. "Thank you, Kuroba."

"Thank _you_ for putting yourself out there to share that with me," Kaito answered in earnest. "I'm really glad we had this talk."

"…I am too," Saguru finally decided. His heart felt a little lighter now that the matter of telling Kaito about Kostya was mostly off his chest.

"Wanna get ice cream?" Kaito suggested. "My treat?"

"You want to get ice cream in winter after spending the last two hours at an ice rink?" Saguru chuckled.

"Yeah? So? Don't you?" Kaito challenged.

Saguru laughed. "All right. Since it's your treat, Kuroba."

…..

Mikau: Fifty points to anyone who, when I said "Konstantin", thought "Like Konstantin Levin?" But anyway. I hope you liked chapter two. ^.^; It was a little more spicy and angsty than the first one, but it was a lot of fun to write. Not so much fun to edit into readable shape, but…if you guys liked it, I was worth it. Thanks so much for reading. I hope to have another chapter ready to post this weekend. Take care!


	3. Chapter 3

Mikau: Hi guys! Thanks for coming back for chapter three! Sorry about last chapter. -.-; Hopefully you'll like this one better. I feel bad about this series because this isn't something I wrote for fun, and I think it shows. I rushed to get it all written in two weeks to meet the deadline, and the suggested word limit was around 1.5K, so I in no way intended to write almost 18K. I definitely didn't want to go over 10K in the beginning, so I made the choice to leave out filler scenes to show the progression of the friendship and focused instead on the plot-relevant scenes, so I think it makes the pacing feel weird and jumpy, but… Anyway, hopefully this chapter is better than the last one. I hope you enjoy it. Special thanks to reviewers: Fireflower19, Flesh Delirium, and LadyShadow26!

Disclaimer: Just in case you forgot, I am not Aoyama Gosho-sensei, and I am still not a reputable source for information on figure skating. Thanks again to the magic of the internet for enabling me to do research.

…...

Chapter Three

"Excellent, Kuroba!" Saguru cheered as they both came to a stop after executing their side by side double axels. "You're doing extremely well. How do you feel about it?"

Kaito wobbled a little but was able to stay fairly stationary and upright without Saguru's help. "I feel pretty good, actually. The jumps aren't too bad most of the time if I concentrate, and I actually feel really confident about the dance lifts and the midair lifts."

"Good." Saguru beamed with pride, thinking how far Kaito had come in only a month's time. "All that's left is the death spiral, twist lift, throw jump, and then to actually practice the pieces of the routine we've been working on as a whole."

"I'm actually kind of stoked for the death spiral," Kaito laughed at himself. "When you first showed it to me, I thought you were nuts, but now that I've seen what all I can do and I'm not so afraid anymore, it kind of looks like fun."

"You _would_ think being swung around with your head inches from both the ice and my blades was fun," Saguru scoffed fondly. "We'll try death spirals tomorrow. For now, I want to try the twist lift."

"Can we work on footwork a little more first?" Kaito requested, face a bit pale. "I still don't feel comfortable doing crossovers, and I'm afraid I'm going to make our step sequences look like a total mess. That's more important than the twist lift right now, isn't it?"

Saguru's brow furrowed at Kaito's subtle attempt at procrastination, but he didn't press the issue. "If you'd like. What seems to be giving you trouble? I think your footwork looks fine. It's a little unpolished, maybe, but…"

Kaito's cheeks colored slightly, and he looked down at the ice, smiling bashfully. "You're going to have a field day with me after all the crap I gave you, but my problem isn't the movements themselves but the emotions behind them."

"I'm sorry. I'm not following you." Saguru frowned, trying his best to understand.

Kaito rubbed the back of his neck, searching for the right words to express his feelings. "When I hold your hand as we skate together, I feel…"

" _What exactly?"_ he wondered.

"…weird," Kaito decided. "It's awkward. I've always felt like, when I watched pair skaters in the past, it seemed like they were actually a couple. The atmosphere between them, the subtle looks, the caresses, it's all…" Kaito bit his lip and tried again. "There's a lot of drama and sexual tension. I made the comment before that some of the moves we were doing were like having sex clothed, but skating with you and doing all these extremely intimate moves to draw the audience into the performance and the story we're weaving…recently it's started to feel…strange…for some reason."

Kaito looked up to find his partner studying him intently. It didn't look like Hakuba was judging or about to laugh at him at all, but the blonde's expression seemed somewhat troubled while still remaining unreadable.

When it became apparent that Saguru wasn't going to respond, Kaito licked his lips and attempted to clarify. "This has never happened to me before. I mean, I've disguised as people's spouses in the past, and it was never a big deal just playing the part. I have no idea why suddenly I'm all 'blushing virgin' when it comes to touching and holding and acting out this performance of making love on ice with you." He tentatively met Saguru's gaze. "Does that…make any sense?"

"It depends. Is it _just_ me you feel awkward doing things with? Would it make a difference if it were some other man or even a woman?" Saguru mentally crossed his fingers, not wanting to get his hopes up yet but unable to completely restrain himself.

"Yeah. I mean, I was wondering, so I hit on Kudo the other day, and I had no problem with that," Kaito reported with a shrug.

Saguru frowned. On one hand, it was encouraging to hear that Kaito's skittish reactions to intimacy were reserved to him alone. That could possibly be a sign that Kaito had become aware of Saguru as a potential romantic interest. On the other hand…

"And how did Kudo feel about your little experiment?" He almost hated to ask.

Kaito's lips curled into a mischievous grin. "He nearly decked me and threated to skin me alive if I ever impersonated Ran-chan again."

Saguru groaned, shaking his head. "Of course you did."

"Of course," Kaito chuckled but then quickly got back to business. "So what do you think is up with me?"

Saguru nearly laughed.

Kaito caught the twitch of the lips and narrowed his eyes at his friend. "What? Seriously. It's totally throwing me off and making me nervous. I can't focus, and it's going to show in our performance, Haku-chan. If you know something, spit it out already."

Saguru shook his head, smiling indulgently. "I don't think it's any cause for concern, Kuroba. You should figure it out given time."

"Oh, stop with your smug grin," Kaito grumbled. "If I weren't on skates right now, I'd slug you."

"This isn't smug," Saguru insisted. "And you should be very familiar with smug, considering the frequency with which you express it."

Kaito rolled his eyes. "Fine. But until I manage to figure things out and get a handle on my rogue nerves, how do I deal with them?"

"I couldn't tell you," Saguru informed apologetically.

"Well what did _you_ do to keep yourself from freaking out at all the suggestive touches and moves when you first started pair skating?" Kaito demanded in exasperation. "You always clam up and shy away at the mere mention of relationships or intimacy, so how did _you_ deal?"

Hakuba blinked as he stared in surprise at his partner. "I never had that issue."

Kaito stared at him blankly. "You're kidding."

"No," Saguru answered in earnest. "I never had a problem with all the close contact. In fact, I sort of liked it. Not in a weird way, mind you," he rushed to add, cheeks coloring as he waved his arms. "Just…I was a bit neglected growing up. Baaya was always wonderful, but my parents were largely absent, and, for various reasons, I had no close friends. I was emotionally starved, so the little human intimacy I got through skating was like a gulp of fresh air before I went underwater again. That's part of why I was such an easy target for Kostya."

"I'm sorry," Kaito whispered, hesitantly reaching out and resting his hand on Saguru's shoulder.

Saguru smiled softly in warm appreciation for the gesture. "It's all right. Thank you, Kuroba. I'm sorry I can't offer you any advice, though."

Kaito shook his head and shrugged. "Don't even worry about it. I'm a professional after all. I'll get this under control."

"Ready to try out some footwork, then?"

Kaito nodded, reaching out for Saguru's hand. "I want to do the part where we skate backwards holding hands, turn together, and then switch hands."

Saguru nodded in assent, and they practiced various footwork for another half hour.

Kaito was just about to suggest another element he wanted to review when Saguru gently cut him off. "Kuroba, don't you think it's about time to try the twist lift? We were supposed to go over it today."

Kaito grimaced. "Do we have to?"

Saguru nodded.

"I'm not ready," Kaito argued.

"But you _are_ ," Saguru tried to encourage his partner. "You're just anxious, but I assure you, there's no need to be afraid. Come here."

Kaito reluctantly skated over to his friend. He almost jumped as Saguru reached out and took Kaito's cheeks in his hands.

"Kaito," Saguru whispered soothingly. "I promise I would never drop you. I won't let you fall, so don't be afraid."

Kaito's eyes widened, cheeks glowing and heart throbbing at the contact coupled with the use of his given name stripped of all honorifics.

As he processed what Saguru was saying, he broke out into a sheepish smile and laughed. He shook his head as he responded, "Haku-chan, I _know_. I trust you, and I know I'm in good hands." He rested his palm lightly on top of Saguru's hand, still holding Kaito's cheek. "That's not what I'm afraid of. I'm scared that _I'm_ going to mess up and accidentally hurt _you_."

Saguru's mouth fell open slightly as his mind short circuited. Kaito was afraid of hurting _him_? "Oh…. But you won't! I'll be fine, so you don't have to psych yourself out over something like that."

Kaito frowned, pulling back away from Saguru. "Yes, I do, because it's kind of a big deal, slicing my partner's face open or accidentally decapitating him," he retorted indignantly.

"But that's not going to happen," Saguru assured.

"Maybe not the decapitation," Kaito conceded. "But I'm still worried about seriously hurting you. These are dangerous stunts we're doing, Haku-chan, and I am so far from a professional, it's not even funny."

"It will be okay, Kuroba. You've done just fine when we practiced," Saguru reasoned.

"Yeah, without the knives on my feet," Kaito scoffed.

"I know you can do this. Have a little more faith in yourself; _I_ have faith in you."

Kaito looked at his partner, studied the firm, resolute belief in Saguru's eyes, and then sighed in defeat. "Fine. Let's do this thing already before I lose my nerve."

"Excellent," Saguru cheered, victorious at last. "All right. Just like we practiced, Kuroba. You've got this. Just remember, big bend in the knee as I set you down."

Kaito took a deep breath as he got into position.

"Okay?" Saguru prompted.

Kaito shook his head. "I can't."

"Kuroba?" Saguru called softly, going over and giving Kaito's shoulders a quick massage. "Get out of your own head, Kuroba. You're not going to hurt me…. Don't think. Just do it."

Kaito took a deep breath, closing his eyes and concentrating on the reassuring pressure of Saguru's fingers as he kneaded away the stress.

"Just do it," Kaito muttered to himself, nodding as he reset.

Saguru patted him on the back before taking his own position.

"Just do it. Just do it," Kaito whispered.

At Saguru's cue, they took off, gradually building speed. Saguru's hands went to Kaito's waist, raising him up and gently tossing him into the spin.

Kaito's body moved on its own, his muscles remembering the hours of training Saguru had put him through on the mats for this exact purpose. Kaito's body knew what to do, just like when he was flying the glider. He moved instinctually, and so there was no need to think in depth about where his arms went and how he needed to position his feet. It all came together in an instant, and then it was over.

Saguru caught him once more, gently setting him down. Kaito's knee bent, his back leg went up, and the twist lift was successfully completed.

"I _told_ you so!" Saguru shouted triumphantly, pulling Kaito in for a crushing hug. "Kuroba, that was brilliant! See? I knew you could do it! That was flawless! See what you can do?"

Kaito laughed hysterically, his body trembling as his arms wrapped around his partner and he leaned on Saguru for support. "Oh my gosh," he whispered breathlessly. "I wanna do that again."

"See?" Saguru chuckled, leaning back slightly to beam down at Kaito. "You're incredible, Kuroba."

"Why?" Kaito scoffed. "You're the one doing all the hard work. I just do what you tell me, Haku-chan."

Saguru rolled his eyes. "For once in his life, the great Kuroba Kaito shows a little humility…at a time when none is necessary. You've put the time and the effort in too, Kuroba, and it is paying off. This is your victory every bit as much as it's mine…if not, more so for all that you've had to overcome to get here."

Kaito shrugged off the praise, but a content grin still clung to his lips. "All right. Maybe, but, anyway, thank you, Haku-chan for making all this possible. I can't tell you how grateful I am that you helped me work through my trauma and actually made me enjoy skating."

"The pleasure has been all mine," Saguru assured and then changed the subject slightly out of embarrassment. "But you said you wanted to do the twist lift again?"

Kaito was quickly distracted, and they got back to work on their technique.

…

"I can't believe you landed a quad flip," Saguru repeated for the third time as they left the rink. "My mind is still blown."

"Yeah?" Kaito chuckled, pride thrumming through his entire body. The look of awe on Saguru's face when Kaito executed the jump had been priceless, and his success was still making Kaito giddy.

"Yes," Saguru affirmed. "Where in the world did you learn to do that? The most rotations I've ever had you do on a jump is two. Well, two and half on the axel, but…"

"YouTube." Kaito shrugged. "Do you think we could incorporate a quad flip into our routine?"

"No, because I don't think I could do a quad anything anymore," Saguru laughed sheepishly. "…Kuroba, why don't we call this pair thing off, and I'll just choreograph a program for the Suzuki's competition for you?"

"What?" Jarred out of his euphoric mood, Kaito stopped walking and stared at his friend, hurt and confusion filling his violet eyes. "W-Why? Did I do something wrong? Is skating with me too much trouble or something?"

Saguru came to a halt as well, startled at the intensity of Kaito's reaction. "Not at all. I've just been thinking that you've become so good at this, Kuroba. Now that you've gotten past your trauma, you're excelling, just like you do in all other athletics. You're far better than I am, and now that you don't really need me anymore, I thought it might be better to have you compete individually so that I don't hold you back."

"You're not holding me back! Haku-chan, I _do_ still need you," Kaito returned resolutely. "I'd be petrified if I didn't have you out there on the ice with me. I've only been able to do as well as I have because you're there by my side and I trust that you'll save me if anything happens."

The two stood, holding each other's gaze as the wind whistled through the dead leaves still clinging to the mostly barren branches of the campus's maple trees.

A faint smile of understanding slowly unfolded on Saguru's lips, and he nodded his assent. "All right. We'll skate together." Then, to lighten the tense atmosphere he had unwittingly created between them, Saguru added, "And if need be, I'll do everything I can to save you short of mouth-to-mouth. I seem to remember your verbal DNR order expressly forbidding that."

Kaito winced, face going red either from the frigid wind or the mortifying embarrassment. "Forget that I ever said that. I was still caught up in being a massive jerk back then."

"So I am allowed to resuscitate you?" Saguru teasingly hummed in thought, a facetious grin breaking through.

Kaito averted his eyes, cheeks still glowing like embers, as he started walking again, throwing, "Yeah, but you'd better marry me afterwards, you hear?" back over his shoulder.

"I suppose I could do worse," Saguru returned the volley with gusto. It was rare that he got to see Kaito flustered, and he was enjoying it to the fullest. "Physically and mentally, you're a steal as far as mates go. It's just your bad personality that goes and spoils the whole thing."

"Shut up and hurry," Kaito groused, defaulting to a prickly attitude in defense against Hakuba's unusual playful teasing. "It's freezing out here, so let's keep moving."

Saguru tried to put a damper on his amused smirk as he fell back into step beside Kaito, but he couldn't hold back a pleased chuckle of, "It's good to know someone needs me."

A quick bolt of pain stabbed Kaito through the heart. "You're needed by a lot of people, Haku-chan," Kaito reminded.

Saguru's brow creased as he tried to think to whom Kaito could be referring. He supposed there were the people he helped as a detective. That number wasn't nearly as large as Kudo's, but it undeniably counted for something. Not in the way Saguru wished, but…

"Ah. You're right. I forget sometimes." Saguru tried to shake it off, to shake off that concerned look Kaito was now giving him.

"Actually, this is the kind of thing I wanted to talk to you about," Kaito muttered, sticking his hands into his pockets.

"Hm?" Saguru leaned in closer, unable to hear well over the whipping of the wind. "What did you want to talk to me about?"

"A lot of things." Kaito raised his volume to compete with the blustery wind. "Can I come over to your place? I mean, my roommate is out with his girlfriend, so technically we should be in the clear, but if they get in a fight and he comes home early… I don't want to risk being walked in on, so your single room would work much better."

Saguru slowed his pace considerably, warily eyeing his friend. "Kuroba, what exactly are you wanting to talk about?"

Kaito bit his lip, tipping his head to look back at Saguru as he admitted, "Stuff you're probably not going to want to talk about?"

"Such as?" Saguru reluctantly kept following the magician.

Kaito took a deep breath and then met Saguru's gaze as he explained, "You know when I told you about my ice/fish trauma? You said that everyone had something like that and that for you it was a fear that you were unlovable and that you were scared people were going to reject and abandon you."

Saguru paled, eyes widening and lips rounding into a silent "Oh". He had so hoped that Kaito had forgotten about that or maybe that it hadn't completely registered. He looked away, trying to play it cool. "Oh, that? It's really not such a big deal as it may have seemed at the time. My primary goal was to help you regain confidence in yourself and relax so that you could skate properly. I don't think—"

"—Saguru," Kaito sternly interrupted Saguru's fibs. "It _is_ a big deal. Don't play all nonchalant on me; I can see right through you. You put on a good show most of the time, but occasionally the things you say and your reactions reveal just how broken you really are on the inside."

Saguru opened his mouth to refute Kaito, but Kaito gently cut him off.

"I can tell because I'm broken behind this mask I always wear too." Kaito paused as Saguru searched his eyes, his expression. "I've told you about my father, right? In passing? Or at least I've dropped major hints?"

Saguru nodded. "That he faked his death, didn't intervene when your mother was admitted to an institution and you were being passed around between distant relatives, let you take up his mantle thinking you were avenging his death and saving the world, and then walked back into your life after nearly ten years as if nothing had happened? At least, that's what I gathered from the little you gave me to work with. I had to do a substantial amount of background research on your family and then some creative connecting of the dots." Saguru chuckled ironically. "You know, if that was you dropping 'major hints', Kuroba, I would hate to see you being subtle. I'm afraid I wouldn't be able to keep up."

Kaito grimaced as they approached Saguru's dorm. "Okay, so I suck at making big heart-to-heart confessions, but my point was that I've got plenty of cracks and chinks myself. Haku-chan, we're friends, right?"

Saguru replied without the slightest hesitation. "Of course we are."

"And friends are there to talk about things and support one another and keep each other from suffering on their own, right?" Kaito pressed, lowering his voice as they entered the building and started down the first floor hallway towards the elevator.

"Yes," Saguru whispered, seeing clearly that there was no way he was getting out of having this discussion.

"So we need to talk," Kaito summarized. "I want to help in any way I can, even if it's just listening and letting you get something off your chest. Besides, I probably could use someone to listen to me, so feel free to ask me about anything too."

Saguru closed his eyes as they rode the lift up, taking deep breaths and considering Kaito's offer. "All right," he sighed.

They exited the elevator and made their way down the hall to Saguru's door.

"I _had_ wanted to tell you everything, and I'd planned on doing it eventually," he confessed, much to Kaito's surprise, as he fished out his keys. "I don't know that I'm ready at this point, but, at the same time, I know that I won't feel any more prepared even if I keep putting this conversation off for any number of weeks, months, or years."

The door clicked open, and Saguru stepped inside, pausing in the doorway, biting his lip. He turned to Kaito, looking him straight in the eye even as his body and voice shook. "Before we start this, though, there's something you should know. I don't want to waste your time, so I'm just going to tell you now, and if you want to leave, that's fine. You don't have to pretend or worry about my feelings. It'll be easier on me if we make a clean break of it."

"Saguru, what are you talking about?" Kaito demanded, beginning to worry at the anguish in Saguru's eyes and the distress evident in his voice.

Saguru forced himself to face Kaito so that he could gauge the magician's reaction as he confessed, "I've never really been interested in women."

…...

Mikau: Yep. That's where I'm stopping for today. ^.^ I love you too. So what did you think? I hope you liked it better than last chapter. -.-; Anyway, I think I've decided that next chapter will be the last. My options were to do one big chapter of about five thousand five hundred words or to break it up into two chapters of four thousand and one thousand five hundred respectively, so…I decided to go with the former. Thank you for reading, and I hope you'll look forward to the conclusion. I'm going to be swamped this week, but it should be posted next weekend.


	4. Chapter 4

Mikau: Welcome back for the final chapter! This was actually really fun to do, so I'm glad I drew kakashikrazy for the Secret Santa event. I hope you all enjoyed this story as well. This last chapter is where poor Haku-chan unpacks all of his baggage and begins to heal. It's a little heavy, but I think it discusses important topics. I hope you like it. Oh! But before we get started, thanks so much to everyone who reviewed last time: Fireflower19, LadyShadow26, arccie, and Blue Waters 52!

Disclaimer: Please refer to all previous disclaimers for this story concerning how much I don't own the DCMK characters and learned everything I know about ice skating from internet research and anime.

…...

Chapter Four

"I've never really been interested in women," Saguru confessed and then waited, holding his breath for the backlash of disgust and rejection he was sure would come.

Kaito blinked, trying to make sense of where that declaration fit into the conversation they were supposed to be having about being unlovable and afraid of abandonment. Then it hit him, and he rolled his eyes.

"Oh. Is this where you tell me you're gay and that 'Kostya' is the Russian diminutive of Konstantin?" He smiled reproachfully. "Am I supposed to turn my back on you now, allowing you to prove to yourself that there really is no one out there capable of accepting you?"

Saguru's mouth dropped open slightly, his mind spinning out as it tried to catch up. "Y-Yes?"

Kaito's annoyance abated, and his tone softened. "Too bad. I personally prefer women, but I've started to notice over the past few years that certain guys can be kind of attractive too. Now that I've passed your test, can I come in so we can talk about all this?"

Saguru nodded, stepping aside and letting Kaito pass.

Kaito tipped off his shoes and helped himself to a pair of guest slippers, showing himself into the dorm room

Saguru followed suit in a bit of a daze, muttering, "But…back in high school, if I had told you then that I liked men, you would have freaked out and run away…wouldn't you?"

Kaito hummed thoughtfully as he took a seat on Saguru's couch, tucking his legs up underneath him. "Probably, but you shouldn't judge the person in front of you based on the immature child he was back in high school…at least, don't let that be the sole factor you base judgments upon. I've changed a lot since then."

Saguru nodded, going to the kitchenette to make hot chocolate for the both of them. "So…you don't mind my attraction to other men."

Kaito snorted. "I don't see what business it is of mine who you date…other than, as your friend, reserving the right to vet them, tell you they're scum, and beat the stuffing out of them if they hurt you. Why should I mind?"

Saguru shrugged halfheartedly, avoiding Kaito's gaze. "It makes a lot of men uncomfortable. They think I'm some depraved pervert, always thinking about sex and just waiting for my opportunity to attack them."

"We both know I'm the nympho around here," Kaito scoffed. " _You're_ waiting for marriage."

Saguru looked up, studying Kaito's reaction once again. "But I don't make you uncomfortable?"

Kaito shook his head. "Please. You're a gentleman. Even if you did have feelings for me, you'd keep them to yourself until you were sure an advance from your side would be welcome. Even after that, you'd slowly start courting me. Being pushy isn't your style."

Saguru's cheeks warmed at the knowledge that Kaito had come to know him so well.

"Haku-chan, you and I don't have a problem, so relax, okay? All those ignorant jerks out there that think you're some degenerate just because you like guys are the ones that have something wrong with them, so try not to let it bug you, okay?" Kaito coaxed.

"Easier said than done," Saguru sighed.

"Yeah, I know." Kaito matched Saguru's weary tone exactly. "Just try to keep it in mind, though, that they're the ones with the problem. But now that we've got that out of the way, can we talk about the broader issue? I'm assuming your sexuality is a part of it, but…did you feeling like you were unlovable start with Kostya, or…?"

Saguru pursed his lips, shaking his head as he gathered his thoughts. "With my parents."

Kaito arched an eyebrow as Saguru came over to sit on the couch beside him, holding out a mug of hot chocolate for Kaito to take.

"I was an accident," Saguru explained, looking down into his cup. "My mother was only seventeen when she had me, and she only had me because my grandmother is a staunch Catholic. The marriage was my grandmother's doing as well, so, needless to say, my mother has always resented me. My father is a little better. Sometimes I think he's at least a bit fond of me, and sometimes I can tell he's proud of my achievements, but both of my parents have always been far more interested in their own careers than in parenthood, so…I grew up feeling like an unwanted nuisance. I still feel like an unwanted nuisance, and I've never found anyone capable of easing the guilt I feel over inconveniencing my father and ruining my mother's life."

"How would someone go about doing that?" Kaito gently intruded into Saguru's racing thoughts. "I mean, I just kind of want to punch your parents and make them apologize and hug you, and I want to tell you to stop feeling guilty that you're alive because you have the right to live. The world is better off with you in it than it would have been if you'd never existed, so…" Kaito bit his lip, reigning himself in. "But I know that me saying all that doesn't change the way you feel. I can't just talk you out of years of trauma, so… _is_ there anything I can do to help you?"

Saguru looked up, meeting Kaito's gaze full of concern, sadness, and affection. "I've never really thought about it before. I do feel better, you saying all that, but…" He smiled bitterly. "I suppose what I want is someone to love me…to prove that just because my parents never cared for me, that doesn't mean that someone else can't."

"What about your Baaya?" Kaito suggested. "You two seem close. I always thought of her as your foster mother, but…is she not really…?" Kaito frowned.

Saguru shrugged and replied simply, "We pay her. _Well_. Don't get me wrong, she is a wonderful person, and she's always gone over and above the call of duty for me. I do believe there is some genuine affection she harbors for me, but…it's difficult to transcend the master-servant relationship completely. I'm incredibly grateful to her, but she was never able to make up for the fact that my parents didn't care about me."

"Question: Are you wanting paternal love or romantic love? I know we're not talking about sexual love given that it's you, but…what kind of love do you need?" Kaito probed deeper into the issue, sipping gingerly at the still steaming cocoa.

Saguru paused again to consider. "I'm not sure. It may even just be friendship I'm searching for. It's hard to tell until I feel it, but I think what I'm lacking is acceptance. I want someone I can be myself with. I want them to make me feel like it's okay for me to be here and be who I am."

Kaito nodded. "So it's different than having screaming fangirls telling you that they love you and want to have your children. You want a deeper, truer love than that."

"Yes, because those women…and men…don't actually know the real me. I don't think they'd even like the real Saguru. No one wants an insecure nerd with obsessive and depressive tendencies," Saguru mumbled, his gaze dropping back down into his mug.

Kaito nudged Saguru's knee gently with his own. "I want you. Your friendship has been a real blessing to me, and I feel lucky to have you in my life. Is that kind of, sort of good enough?"

Saguru's heart did a backflip, and he almost scalded himself as his hand jerked, sloshing the hot chocolate. Was it good enough? It certainly made Saguru over the moon with joy, but…

"Not quite," Saguru responded apologetically. "It is significant, though. I've not had a real friend in…I'm not sure. I don't know that I've ever had an intimate confidant like this, but…it's not quite enough."

"So you do want a romantic partner," Kaito clarified for the both of them.

"I suppose I do," Saguru realized.

"Got anyone in mind?" Kaito fished, feeling oddly invested in the answer to that question.

Saguru's entire face to the tips of his ears lit up, and he rushed to look away from Kaito's piercing violet eyes. "I believe he's emotionally unavailable, and I don't expect that he'd be interested in me romantically, even if he weren't."

"So we have to work on finding you a boyfriend," Kaito hummed, beginning to plot. His scheming didn't get very far along before he was wondering aloud, "But how does that work between two guys? I mean…if there were a girl I was interested in, I'd talk to her, see if we got along, and then ask her on a date. If she said no—she'd be crazy—but it wouldn't be a big deal. I wouldn't have to worry about her getting offended or freaked out…well, not usually, anyway. I'm guessing it's completely different in same-sex dating. On top of stressing about all of that, there's also the threat of having the guy you confess to telling everyone he knows that you're into guys and ending up completely ostracized because of the stigma, so…how does a guy ever find another guy to be with? God, this is going to be hard."

Saguru shook his head. "I don't know how it works. I've never dated before."

"What about with Kostya?" Kaito froze when he realized he was being insensitive. "Sorry. Am I allowed to talk about him, or is that too painful?"

"It's all right." A weak and sorrowful smile spread across Saguru's lips. "It doesn't hurt quite so much with you. Finally talking about it is helping me to let go, I think."

"Good," Kaito sighed in relief. "So how did you two end up together? I'm guessing he was the one to make the first move because I don't see fourteen year-old Sa-chan propositioning a hot, twenty-five year-old guy. Then, at the same time, how did a skating instructor decide to risk hitting on one of his underage students from a rich and powerful family?"

"I believe I encouraged him even before he started to make advances," Saguru confessed, piecing it together himself as he spoke. "I was so obviously in love with him. I was always staring at him in admiration, sneaking glances here and there. I blushed, I stuttered, I trembled at his touch. It was hard for me to look him in the eye, and he always made me nervous."

Kaito's eyes widened as he began to recognize some of those same symptoms in himself. Suddenly things made a lot more sense and he began to feel foolish.

" _Love, huh?"_ Kaito silently chuckled to himself. _"Shit."_

Next to him on the couch, Saguru continued, oblivious to Kaito's epiphany. "Kostya must have noticed the way I was acting and decided to take advantage of me. I don't know if he ever had feelings for me, but… He started courting me gradually, and then…"

Tears began to form in the corners of Saguru's eyes and proceeded to trickle slowly down his cheeks.

Kaito touched his knee to Saguru's in a gentle show of support. "Do you want me to track him down and make him pay? I could do some _very_ nasty things to him."

Saguru shook his head, letting the tears fall silently as they would. "I don't want to remember anymore. I want to forget any of it ever happened, but…at the same time, those were some of my happiest memories until…I found out he'd been using me to fund nice gifts for his fiancée. What I want is someone to treat me like he did in the beginning again. I want to be treasured and flattered and spoiled but for _real_ this time."

"Don't worry, Haku-chan," Kaito cooed soothingly. "I'll find you a good boyfriend so you can make some new memories and feel loved again. Things are going to work out. You'll see."

"No," Saguru whispered, setting his hot chocolate mug down on the coffee table. "I don't think I'm ready for another boyfriend yet, Kuroba. I'm too…damaged."

Kaito waved away Saguru's protests. "You're not going to get better unless you put yourself out there. Maybe you should go on a few easy dates with some of the saner fangirls just to get the hang of things and build confidence. We can move on to people you're actually interested in later, but first let's just practice to get you feeling better about yourself. The damage might take a while to heal, but at least in the meantime we can be taking steps forward."

"No, Kuroba. I meant…well, the way you understood things is also correct, but…I think the problem is that…" He forced himself to look Kaito in the eye. "I don't feel like I deserve to be loved."

"What the hell put that idea into your head?" Kaito tried to hold back his fury and hear Saguru out, but it was hard to keep a level head.

"Most probably it was a mix between my parents' failure to love me, my mother's passive aggressive attitude towards my existence, and Kostya's ill treatment of me. That's what's underlying all this. I subconsciously believe that I have to be perfect in order to merit love because that thought pattern has been reinforced my whole life."

Kaito sighed in frustration. "This is another one of those times when I just want to tell you 'Well, screw them' and 'Shake it off', but I know from experience that it's not that simple." Kaito gave Saguru an appraising once over before he hesitantly suggested, "Hey, Haku-chan? Have you ever considered talking to someone about all this—like a professional? Because I have the number of a good one, and I'm starting to think that maybe I'm not going to be able to fix all your problems with the power of friendship straight up."

Saguru chuckled softly and nodded. "Yes, thank you. I see a therapist already. But I'm surprised that you do—if that's what you meant when you said that you had one's number," he quickly added.

"What's so surprising?" Kaito snorted lightly. "I saw my father burn to death in front of me when I was eight, learned he had been murdered and a criminal when I was sixteen, and then found out he was actually still alive and just a giant bastard when I was seventeen. And all that's not counting the whole other set of trauma I have thanks to my mom. Of course I see a therapist."

"That makes sense," Saguru conceded. "It's just that you don't seem the type to accept psychological help."

"Fair," Kaito admitted. "And it's true that I have a huge aversion to taking any kind of mood-altering substance, but I have no objection to counseling. Sometime a problem is too big to try to tackle on your own."

Saguru nodded in agreement. "As is true in my case. Though, the people I've seen over the years haven't proven to be much help yet. My issues are so thoroughly engrained."

"Well, let's talk about it, if you don't mind sharing. I mean, if you think it will help, talking with me. If not…" Kaito trailed off, giving Saguru the opportunity to accept or refuse his offer without any pressure attached.

"There is something I've wanted to tell you," Saguru quietly informed, his tone pensive, as if he were trying to decide whether or not to speak. "I'm not sure if now is the right time, but…" He looked up to meet Kaito's gaze. "I don't think I deserve to be loved. I can't in good conscience ask someone to give everything they have, everything they are to me because I'm not able to do the same in return."

Kaito's brow furrowed. "How so?"

"Because I've already been unfaithful," Saguru replied simply, a wry, bitter smile seeming almost to suffocate him.

Kaito's frown deepened, but instead of pressing his friend for clarification, he let Saguru go at his own pace.

"I was a fool. I thought I'd found true love at the age of fourteen, and so I didn't hold anything back. Whatever Kostya asked for, I gave him, so I never thought to refuse when…" Saguru choked, his courage failing him as the beginnings of tears started to make his eyes burn again. He looked down at his mug on the table and muttered in shame, "At the time, same-sex marriage wasn't available, so I thought that once I had found the person I was going to spend the rest of my life with, there was no need to keep waiting for something I didn't ever think was going to be possible. It wasn't until two years later that I realized Kostya had just been using me for my money and my body…and so I don't feel like I can go into another relationship knowing that I'll have to tell my mate that I'm unable to give them the entirety of my body, heart, mind, and soul because it's already been used up by someone else. See? It's really not so simple as you'd thought, is it?"

"It's simple all right," Kaito grumbled, trying to hold in the absolute rage he was feeling towards Saguru's ex at that moment. He had wanted to go track the guy down and knock his lights out before, but now Kaito was considering what forms of torture he could reasonably justify using. "You're the one that's making this complicated, Haku-chan."

Saguru looked up and stared, completely perplexed, at Kaito.

"You heard me right," Kaito confirmed, trying to keep the annoyance out of his voice. "Haku-chan, we're not living in the dark ages where you have to be a virgin or no one will marry you. Even though you were tricked and made a wrong choice in the past, you're still one of the purest, noblest, most gentlemanly guys I know. Virtue isn't determined solely upon whether or not you've had sex, and that's not the only matter under consideration when choosing someone you plan on spending your life with. Just because you've got a skeleton in your closet, that doesn't make you any less deserving of love. Do you think just because I've never slept with anyone, I'm a more desirable mate than you are?"

Saguru was about to reply emphatically, but Kaito cut him off.

"No! Absolutely not because I'm a selfish, lying, promise-breaking cad with a whole host of psychological issues," Kaito stressed. "You may have issues too, Haku-chan, but at least you've got an entire battalion of redeeming qualities to go with them. Any guy would be lucky to have you for your wit, thoughtfulness, reliability, and sincerity. You've got a lot to offer, and having a previous physical relationship isn't the deal-breaker it used to be. I bet you'll find that a lot of guys don't really care so long as you're not carrying any bugs thanks to that previous partner."

Saguru looked back down at his feet and considered Kaito's words.

"Does that help at all, Haku-chan?" Kaito did his best to thread the words with gentle concern.

Saguru kept his gaze fixed down, only sneaking glances out of the corner of his eye. "Do you mean to tell me, Kuroba, that you wouldn't be upset or feel hurt if the girl you were dating told you that she'd slept with some other man?"

"I'm not saying that I wouldn't mind," Kaito countered. "Okay, yeah. I'm the kind of person that would want sex to be something just the two of us shared, but I know I'm not perfect either, so how can I expect the person I marry to be? As you've pointed out before, there are a lot of grey areas regarding the things I do with my body with other people while at work. A potential mate probably wouldn't approve of me doing those kinds of things. I have my own shortcomings to worry about, so is it really fair for me to nitpick? So long as my partner only sleeps with me as long as we're together and only kisses me and only thinks of me in their heart of hearts, does it matter that I'm not the first person they've ever loved? I loved Aoko madly for _years_ , and sometimes I feel like _I_ have nothing left to offer a future partner because I've already given her all the love that I had. However, I think that while these issues I have make me a little harder to love and accept wholesale, they in no way make me unlovable or undeserving of love. And I don't think what you've been through takes away from your value as a human or a mate either, Haku-chan. What do you think?"

Saguru was silent for a minute before softly inquiring, "Do you think _you_ would be able to look past all my flaws and shortcomings and accept me as a mate, if you were attracted to men?"

"Of _course_ I would," Kaito stressed. "God, you're a cakewalk compared to me and all the twisted ways I'm crazy…all the crazy ways I'm twisted too, for that matter. You don't have nearly as many 'flaws' as you think you do."

Saguru let the tears fall freely then, covering his face with his hands as he almost soundlessly wept.

Kaito set down his own mug of hot cocoa and scooted closer to Saguru with everything from his shoulder to his knee down to his ankle gently pressed to Saguru's side.

"It's okay," Kaito whispered in an attempt to comfort his friend. "Feel free to lean on my shoulder too."

Much to Kaito's surprise, Saguru did, resting his head (face still covered by his palms) on Kaito's shoulder until the shockwaves of sobs ceased to rack his body. Eventually, Saguru's hands fell away, and the detective lay still with his head on Kaito's shoulder, eyes closed and waiting for his breathing to even out.

"Thank you," Saguru whispered meekly, embarrassed that he'd let show so much.

"It's all right," Kaito assured. "There's no telling when I might need you to do the same for me, so _please_ don't worry about it. I'll be glad if I was able to help any."

"You did," Saguru mumbled, sitting up and opening his red, puffy eyes. "I feel better now, even though I'm both emotionally and physically exhausted."

"Good. That you feel better, I mean," Kaito chuckled, patting Saguru in a friendly manner on the arm as he stood to go. "I'm going to head home and leave you to sort things out in privacy, then. I don't want to overtax you, so I think we've done enough soul-sharing for the night."

Saguru's hand flew out, grabbing Kaito by the wrist. "W-Wait," he hesitantly demanded.

Kaito patiently waited for Saguru to explain.

The blonde let go of Kaito's wrist and looked down at his own feet. "If it's not too much to ask, do you think you could stay? I don't really want to be alone right now, and the weather is supposed to take a turn for the worse. I don't want you out there in the cold and the dark and the ice because of me, so…"

"Sure," Kaito readily agreed. "Lend me your shower and your couch, and I'll be all set."

Saguru blushed as he tried to block out all of the bad images the word "shower" evoked. He nodded and attempted to play the red tint of his cheeks off as innocent embarrassment. "It means a great deal to me. Everything you do and your friendship, I mean. Thank you, Kuroba."

Kaito paused on his way to the shower to glance back over his shoulder and smirk. " _Kaito_. Or maybe 'Kai', if you'd rather. I don't think 'Kuro-chan' suits me, but you've got to start calling me by a nickname already, okay? And I'm going to upgrade you from 'Haku-chan' to 'Ru'," Kaito reported matter-of-factly with a wink.

Saguru stared until he regained enough composure to nod. "Okay…" His voice cracked slightly. "…K-Kai."

Kaito grinned triumphantly, giving Hakuba the thumbs up as he went on his way to the bathroom.

While Kaito was gone, Saguru laid out the extra bedding and then tried to fall asleep as fast as possible so that he wouldn't have to explain why his nose was bleeding profusely when Kaito came out of the bath, probably wearing only a towel. Saguru knew he'd be unable to sleep once Kaito was back in the room with him, sleeping on the couch just a matter of feet away from his own bed. He'd be up all night listening to Kaito's breathing if he didn't fall asleep now, and he knew it.

He closed his eyes and willed himself to drift off, but one thought kept niggling at him. "Kai," he whispered into his pillow, trying the sinfully delicious syllable out on his tongue once more.

…

"We're doing the throw jump today?" Kaito inquired as he laced up his skates, trying not to let his anxiety show. "That's the only element of our routine we haven't practiced yet, right?"

"That's right," Saguru confirmed, sneaking an appraising glance at his partner's composed expression. "How do you think it's going to go? Do you feel ready?"

Kaito turned to Saguru and laughed, a huge but bashful grin breaking out on his face. "I think I'm going to flutz the landing, break my nose on the ice, and send you into peals of giggles at my incompetence."

Saguru raised an eyebrow skeptically. "Do you seriously think I'd be able to laugh with you fallen and bleeding?"

Kaito stopped chuckling at himself and considered. "I guess not. You'd probably panic and trip yourself as you rushed to get to me."

"Exactly," Saguru snorted. "I'd have a heart attack. Besides, Kai, I doubt you're going to severely injure yourself, even if you do fall. And then—"

"—You'll help me back up and we'll try again until I nail it, right?" Kaito grinned.

The trust for his partner contained within that smile made Saguru's heart skip, and he soon found a smile echoing Kaito's on his own lips.

"Right," he whispered. "But I have a feeling you'll knock it out of the park the second time in the highly unlikely event it's not perfect the first."

"Stop," Kaito snorted, giving Saguru's shoulder a playful nudge with his own.

"You'll see," Saguru chuckled knowingly.

"Shut up and put your skates on, Ru." Kaito rolled his eyes even though he was secretly pleased. Saguru's confidence made Kaito believe that maybe he could pull it off after all.

"Very well," Saguru conceded. "But would you like to listen to the song I was planning on using for our routine first before we head out on the ice?"

Kaito nodded enthusiastically. "You have it picked out? …Well, I guess if you've got choreography, you have to have a music choice to go with it, don't you?" Kaito fidgeted as Saguru pulled out his phone and searched for the song. "What's it called?"

"Ai no Scenario," Saguru replied, handing the phone over to Kaito. "It's very high energy. You should be just fine, but it will probably take a lot out of me to skate to this. I don't have your stamina, but…I like this song for us." Saguru leaned in close to watch the music video over Kaito's shoulder. "I think the lyrics really fit my feelings for—" He stopped abruptly and revised, "—about our friendship."

Kaito's eyes widened as he listened to lyrics full of promises: to protect, to accept completely, to never betray, and to stand by his side even if the entire world should turn against him. Kaito's mouth dropped open, and his heart fluttered in utter joy.

As the song came to an end, he handed the phone back to Saguru and grinned. "It's perfect, Ru. Absolutely gorgeous. So I'll get to skate with you to this once I get the throw jump down?"

Saguru nodded. "That's the plan."

"Then I'm gonna show that throw jump who's boss," Kaito declared, rising to his feet and starting out toward the rink. After a few steps, he paused as if remembering something. "Oh, yeah. Those lyrics." Kaito snuck a quick peek over his shoulder at Saguru. "I feel the same way about you." Kaito whipped back around and resumed walking as he intentionally echoed Saguru, teasing, "I mean, about our friendship."

Saguru's entire face flushed as his thoughts spiraled out of control.

What did _that_ mean? Was Kaito serious? Had he actually been _flirting_ with Saguru? Was Saguru only imagining things? Had Kaito realized Saguru's feelings, and was he now teasing Saguru? Or…?

It took nearly two whole minutes for Saguru to regain his composure and follow Kaito out to the rink.

Kaito was waiting patiently at the gate, still not comfortable stepping out onto the ice on his own. The magician looked much as he usually did, not showing the smallest hint that anything had occurred between the two just minutes before.

Saguru followed Kaito's lead, forcing himself to turn off his overactive imagination and act professionally.

"All right. Let's warm up and then get down to it, shall we?" Saguru suggested, heading out onto the ice first with Kaito close behind.

They did their warm up, and then Saguru had Kaito go over some of the skills Kaito had already mastered in order to build up his confidence before they attempted their first throw jump.

"Are you ready?" Saguru asked gently.

Kaito smiled wryly. "I wish you could tell me that you wouldn't drop me like you've always assured me before, but…seeing as you're throwing me through the air and I'm landing on my own…whether I fall or not is pretty much on me."

"You'll be fine," Saguru encouraged. "Just remember, big bend in the knee. You've done impeccably well when we were practicing on the mats, and your twist lifts are gorgeous nowadays, your jumps are inspiring. There's no reason I can see why you shouldn't do well with this too. If it makes it easier for you, just remember that I won't let you die, and even if you do fall, you can always get back up and try again. Don't worry about letting me down or not meeting my expectations. Don't even worry about your own expectations. I give you permission to fail, even though I don't believe that you will. You've done harder things in the past for much larger stakes, so why bother stressing out about this now? All right?"

Kaito's lips broke into a wide grin as he laughed at the silliness of his own anxiety. "All right. If you put it that way."

"No pressure," Saguru stressed. "Just go out there and do it, Kai."

Kaito nodded. "Ready when you are."

Saguru gave the signal, and they pushed off, building momentum, syncing up their steps. Kaito felt Saguru's hands on his waist, and then suddenly he was airborne, bringing in his arms, crossing his ankles like Saguru had shown him, and spinning. Landing with a big bend in his right knee, he spread his arms for balance and kept his head raised as his left leg swept around and arched up behind him.

It was all over in seconds, and then Saguru was skating towards him, eyes wide, grin wider.

Kaito straightened and came to a stop, and Saguru grabbed both of Kaito's hands in his own, squeezing them as he exclaimed, "Kaito! What did I tell you? I'm so proud of you! That was marvelous! Perfect! God, you're beautiful," he breathed as he gazed into Kaito's violet eyes.

Kaito squeezed Saguru's hands back, holding them tight as he surged forward, pressing his lips to Saguru's. "Do you really mean that?" he whispered as he pulled away, nervously meeting Saguru's gaze once more. "That I'm beautiful?"

Saguru stared in shock, lips half parted, barely knowing what he said when he answered, "Of course. I've always thought…" Coming down from his euphoria and back to his senses, he frowned. "But why did you kiss me? I don't understand."

Kaito winced. "Saguru, there aren't very many reasons why one guy would kiss another." He forced himself to look Saguru straight in the eye as he explained, "Recently I've started to realize how beautiful _you_ are."

Saguru blinked, unable to come up with an intelligent response. "O-Oh?"

Kaito nodded sheepishly. "I hope that all this doesn't stop after the Suzuki's competition. I want to keep spending time together, learning about each other, and having the kinds of discussions we've been having this past month—both the inane ones about which condiments are best on takoyaki and the deep ones about how we've been hurt in the past. Would you want to keep spending time with me like that too?"

"Absolutely," Saguru whispered, his entire body trembling in a mix of ecstasy and fear that this might just be a dream.

A little of his anxiety melted as Kaito leaned in and kissed him again, more languidly this time.

"Awesome," Kaito chuckled, slowly pulling back. "I'm really glad. Part of me was afraid I had completely misread you and that I'd end up getting black-listed forever."

"I know what you mean," Saguru sighed, pulse still fluttering.

With another squeeze of Saguru's hand and a goofy grin, Kaito tugged his partner back into motion. "Well now we both know we don't have to be afraid, so why don't you show me the whole routine, and then we can practice it a little before I take you on our first dinner date?"

Saguru's heart did a backflip, and he nodded his wholehearted assent.

The

End

…

Mikau: So what did you think? Too dark? Too sappy? Goodness knows there was enough of both of those. Regardless, thanks for reading, everyone. I hope it was an enjoyable experience. I also hope to see you again soon. I'm going to try to get back to work on some of my old stories. I'm working on finishing up In the Spider's Web right now, and then I'm thinking about going back to The Monster at My Window, but we'll see how things go. Thank you again for sticking with me and all your feedback and support. Take care!


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